Council landed with ‘outrageous’ €11m bill from contractor despite project’s tender price of €6m

A public works’ contractor landed a local authority with an €11m bill after completing a project for which the tender price was just over €6m.

Councillors in Clare, at a statutory meeting, described the firm’s demands as “outrageous”.

A settlement has been reached by Clare County Council and the contractor, P&D Lydon, who completed a sewage scheme for the villages of Feakle, Scarriff, and Quilty.

Councillors also hit out at professional fees of €65,775 paid as part of the settlement. Conciliation talks led to the firm receiving a further €1.35m.

P&D Lydon secured the €6.1m contract for the works, but submitted a final claim last year demanding €11.4m — €5m more than the original contract price.

Former mayor Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) said: “I cannot understand how we can award contracts and someone can double the amount. Something must have gone wrong somewhere in the system to allow that to happen.”

He described the final demand as “outrageous” while Cllr Cathal Crowe (FF) described it as “absolutely shocking”.

In response to the demand, the council’s own assessment costed the contract at €6.5m — €363,000 more than the original contract price, sparking a major dispute between the two parties.

In a report to the council, infrastructure director Ann Haugh said the dispute was the subject of conciliation, with the council paying fees of €65,775 to an engineer and a conciliator.

The conciliator was paid €20,000 for conducting eight days of talks.

Ms Haugh said that after conciliation, the council and P&D Lydon reached a settlement of an additional €1.35m (excluding Vat) to be paid to the firm.

Cllr Joe Arkins (FG) said “the professional fees sound excessive but it was money well spent”.